A housing of a printer, used to print on a paper pulled from a roll of paper, includes a box-shaped drawer unit which is slidable with respect to a housing to enable the loading of rolls of paper held in the drawer into the printer. A hopper is provided in or on the drawer unit to support the roll of paper so that the roll of paper may be rotated to allow paper to be fed therefrom for printing thereon.
The following problems arise if the roll of paper is positioned in the hopper in such a way that the lower end of the roll of paper comes into contact with the base or other surfaces of the drawer unit during printing. When the roll of paper is rotated to enable feeding of a continuous sheet of paper therefrom, sliding contact can occur between the lower end or extension of the roll of paper and the underlying surface of the drawer unit. When the roll is rotated to feed the paper therefrom, this contact generates heat from the rubbing of the paper against the adjacent surface, and due to this heat, a heat-sensitive roll of paper becomes blackened or darkened. Additionally, the paper fed from roll of paper may have scratches thereon due to the contact between the lower end of the roll of paper and the lower surface of the drawer unit. That is to say, if the roll of paper is set in such a way that the lower end of the roll of paper comes in contact with the adjacent surfaces of the drawer unit below the paper, it is difficult to effectively maintain the quality or integrity of the paper fed from the roll.
To effectively maintain the quality of the paper and the roll of paper, in the conventional printer, the roll of paper is positioned, when loaded into the drawer, in such a way that the lower end of the roll of paper lies above the base of the drawer unit so as to separate the roll of paper from the inner surfaces of the drawer unit below the roll. That is to say, in the conventional printer, the hopper is set in such a way that the lower end of the roll of paper lies at a position which is elevated off the surfaces of the drawer unit located therebelow.
However, the size of a roll of paper that can be loaded into the printing apparatus, and thus the length of paper which may be printed on before the roll must be replaced, is limited by the required clearance between the top of the roll and the drawer opening during loading of the paper into the printing apparatus. In a conventional printer of this type, arises when a roll of paper with a large diameter, which is sufficiently large to protrude into the upper portion of the drawer unit, is placed in the hopper the roll of paper and the housing of the printer can interfere with each other, when the drawer unit is pushed into the housing. Thus, the size of the roll is limited to a diameter which is less than the distance between the base of the drawer and the top of the opening into which the drawer slides, because the roll must be held above the base of the drawer to prevent deterioration of the paper during use. Therefore, in a conventional printer with rolls of paper possessing a small diameter placed in the hopper and which do not protrude into the upper portion of the drawer unit, the roll of paper is consumed quickly and thus the frequency of roll replacement is high.